May she reach for the stars.
The baby girl born on a military aircraft fleeing Afghanistan over the weekend has been named after the plane’s call sign — Reach.
The child’s mother went into labor as the C-17 airplane made its way from a staging base in Qatar toward Germany’s Ramstein Air Base on Saturday following an evacuation flight from Kabul. The Afghan mom began experiencing complications, and the pilot decided to descend in altitude to increase air pressure in the aircraft, which military officials said helped stabilize the woman and save her life.
Immediately upon landing, a team of medics rushed into the aircraft and delivered the baby in the plane’s cargo bay.
Gen. Tod Wolters, the head of U.S. European Command, revealed the child’s name during a briefing with reporters Wednesday at the Pentagon.
“We’ve had further conversations with the mom and the dad of the baby that was born on the C-17,” he said. “They named the little girl Reach. And they did so because the call sign of the C-17 aircraft that flew them from Qatar to Ramstein was Reach. So that child will forever be Reach.”
Wolters said the baby and her mom were in good condition.
“And as you can well imagine, being an Air Force fighter pilot,” he said, “it’s my dream to watch that young child called Reach grow up and be a U.S. citizen and fly United States Air Force fighters in our Air Force.”
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